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In 1466 a Bohemian nobleman, Gabriel Tetzel, visited England and described it as ‘a little, sea-girt garden’. The Italian scholar Polydore Vergil, writing at the end of the fifteenth century, was impressed by the country’s delectable valleys, pleasant, undulating hills, agreeable woods, extensive meadows, lands in cultivation, and the great plenty of water springing everywhere. It is truly a beautiful thing to behold one or two thousand tame swans upon the River Thames. The riches of England are greater than those of any other country in Europe. There is no small innkeeper, however poor and humble he may be, who does not serve his table with silver dishes and drinking cups.
England, wrote Piero da Monte, papel envoy to the court of Henry VI, was ‘a very wealthy region, abounding in gold and silver and many precious things, full of pleasures and delights’.
Much of the land was then covered by forest and woodland. Flocks of sheep were to be seen everywhere, for the prestigious wool trade was the life-blood of the kingdom. Cattle, too, were much in evidence, as were herds of deer. Arable land was often still divided into the open strips typical of feudal farming, but in many places there were abandoned villages, fallen into decay around ruined churches. The Warwickshire antiquarian John Rous speaks of ‘the modern destruction of villages’ being ‘a national danger’. Many villages had disappeared after a large proportion of their inhabitants had died in the great epidemic of plague known as the Black Death of 1348-9. This depopulated some villages, and left others with too few inhabitants to cultivate the land. Those who remained were often able to negotiate cash wages in return for their labour and sometimes to exploit the social mobility that this new development gave them by moving elsewhere. Other villages had been swallowed up by farmers and landowners enclosing landthat had formerly been common with hedges and fences, so as to provide grazing for wool-producing sheep.
There were 10,000 townships in England, but nearly all were the size of many modern villages. London was by far the largest city: around 60-75,000 people lived there. York, the second most important city, had 15,000 inhabitants, lesser towns perhaps 6,000 at most. Most towns and cities were bounded by the confines of their walls, and nestled in a rural environment. Trade centred on them and it was controlled by merchant guilds.
There was a network of roads linking towns and villages, but few minor roads. The upkeep of roads was generally the responsibility of local landowners, but they were often less than conscientious. In many parts of England travellers were obliged to hire local guides to see them to their destination, and roads were often rendered impassable by rain and mud. Contemporary records indicate that the climate was colder and wetter than it is now.
By 1485, England had a population of between 750,000 and 3,000,000. Estimates vary because the only available sources are the Poll Tax returns of 1381 and parliamentary records dated 1523-4. What is certain, however, is that England’s population was shrinking during the fifteenth century, and also that many people moved to the great wool-cloth producing areas in Yorkshire, East Anglia and the West Country. About nine-tenths of the population worked on the land; Venetian visitors noted how few people inhabited the countryside, and commented that the population of the realm did ‘not appear to bear any proportion to her fertility and riches’.
The Venetians saw the English as ‘great lovers of themselves. They think that there is no other world than England.’ Englishmen were deeply conservative: ‘If the King should propose to change any old established rule, it would seem to every Englishman as if his life were taken away from him.’ Foreigners, or ‘strangers’, as the insular English called them, were resented, and tended to live in tight communities, mainly in London, which was more cosmopolitan, or in East Anglia, where many Flemish weavers settled.
The Burgundian chronicler Philippe de Commines thought the English a choleric, earthy and volatile people, who nevertheless made good, brave soldiers. In fact he regarded their warlike inclinations as one of the chief causes of the Wars of the Roses. If they could not fight the French, he believed, they fought each other.
Many foreigners were impressed with English standards of living. One Venetian remarked that everyone wore very fine clothes, ate huge meals and drank vast amounts of beer, ale and wine. The roast beef, commented Vergil, ‘is peerless’. The Venetian ambassador was guest of honour at a banquet given by the Lord Mayor of London which lasted ten hours and was attended by a thousand people. What impressed him most, though, was the absolute silence in which the proceedings were conducted. This reflected the current English preoccupation with manners and etiquette. His retinue were moved to comment upon the extreme politeness of the islanders.
Northerners and southerners were seen as two distinct peoples – southerners were perceived as sophisticated, better educated, civilised, treacherous, even cowardly, being said to resemble Homer’s character Paris rather than the martial Hector. Northerners were regarded as brash, proud, fierce, warlike, violent, rapacious and uncouth. Their reputation for plundering was notorious, due no doubt to the primitive conditions in which they lived, for while southerners enjoyed luxuries, northerners subsisted on the breadline. As a result southerners feared northerners as much as northerners resented them.
As today, there were local variations in dialect, but in the fifteenth century these differed so much that even Kentishmen and Londoners had trouble understanding each other. Society was insular and localised and people referred to the county or shire in which they lived as their ‘country’; people in other ‘countries’ were regarded as foreigners.
Most travellers from abroad commented on the alabaster beauty and charm of Englishwomen, and many were amazed by their forwardness. One Bohemian visitor, Nicholas von Poppelau, discovered that they were ‘like devils once their desires were aroused’. He and others were enchanted, however, with the English custom of kissing on the mouth on greeting: ‘To take a kiss in England is the equivalent of shaking hands elsewhere.’
In the fifteenth century Western Europe regarded itself as a united entity bonded by a universal Catholic Church and the philosophy of a divinely ordered universe. Late mediaeval man held a deep-rooted belief that society was also ordered by God for the good of humanity, and this concept of order expressed itself in a pyramidical hierarchy that had God enthroned at the summit, kings immediately beneath Him, then – in descending order – the nobility and princes of the Church, the knights and gentry, the legal and professional classes, merchants and yeomen, and at the bottom the great mass of peasants. Each man was born to his degree, and a happy man was one who did not question his place in life.
God’s law was the natural law of the universe, as revealed in the Scriptures and in the divinely inspired canon and civil law of Church and State. Authority derived from God was sacrosanct. Peace and order could only be achieved when all classes of society were in harmony with each other. Disorder – such as heresy, rebellion, or trying to get above one’s station in life – was regarded as the work of the Devil and therefore as mortal sin. It was held that one of the chief duties of a king was to ensure that each of his liege men lived in the degree to which he was born. Sumptuary laws passed during the period regulating dress and behaviour were intended to preserve order in society; that they were necessary is evidence that already some traditional ideals were being challenged.
By the late fourteenth century the structure of English feudal society was showing signs of crumbling as a result of the social revolution engendered by the Black Death. In the fifteenth century the unity of Christendom was undermined by a decline in respect for the papacy and the Church and by a burgeoning nationalism in the countries of Western Europe. Men were also questioning the old concept of order in society. In 1381, the leaders of the Peasants’ Revolt had asked: ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’ In the following century a new materialism fostered by trade and private enterprise gave birth to the beginnings of capitalism, just as the old land-based economy was changing in response to economic demands.
Change did not take place overnight. The order imposed upon society by Church and State was still a potent force in the fifteenth century. The English Church was then part of the ‘Christian Republic’ of Catholic Europe, and was subject to papal laws and taxes. However, the princes of the Church enjoyed less power than in former centuries, and were gradually giving place to the magnates as a result of the increasing secularisation of government. The power of the bishops was more of a judicial than a spiritual nature, and many enjoyed a luxurious existence which was increasingly perceived as being at variance with the example set by Jesus Christ.
The fifteenth century was a time of stark contrasts within the English Church. On the one hand there was an escalating interest in sermons, homilies, pious moralising and mysticism, while on the other the heretic Lollards, inspired by the teachings of John Wycliffe, were attacking abuses in the Church and even questioning its authority in spiritual matters. Lollardy appealed to the poorer classes of society, but was so ruthlessly suppressed by successive kings that in most areas its influence became negligible.
Growing anti-clerical sentiment meant that the clergy were not immune to the general lawlessness of the age, and many cases of violence against men in holy orders were brought before the courts.
Religious faith was still as lively and deep-seated as ever. England boasted thousands of parish churches and was not for nothing known as ‘the ringing isle’. There was a steady rise in the number of inmates of the monasteries and convents throughout the period, although there were few new foundations. However, chantries grew steadily in number. Pious folk would leave money in their wills to found chantry chapels in which priests would say masses in perpetuity for the salvation of the soul of the departed and his family. Some of these foundations were very large and comprised whole colleges of priests serving collegiate churches which housed several chantry endowments. Many parish churches were converted into such colleges and beautified accordingly.
The transitory nature of life on earth was an ever-recurring religious theme. Given the high rate of infant mortality and relatively low life expectancy, death was an accepted part of life. Men lived to an average of around fifty, with about one fifth surviving to their sixties. Women, as a result of the perils of childbearing, could only expect to live to an average of thirty, while it is possible that up to half of all children did not reach twenty. It was held that those who suffered in this world would receive their reward in Heaven. Death was the great leveller and all, kings and popes together with merchants and peasants, must one day be called to account before the seat of Judgement. The general preoccupation with death manifested itself in the pictures, literature and tomb sculpture of the time: the rich were sometimes buried in tombs with two effigies, the upper one showing the person as in life, nobly attired, while the lower one portrayed a rotting corpse, eaten by life-like worms.
Heaven was perceived as a magnificent and incorrupt royal court, to which the devout and godly would be admitted. Hell – as revealed in vivid Doom paintings on church walls – was an ever-present and very real deterrent to sinners.
People believed that the hand of God directed and guided the affairs of princes. There was also a firm conviction that God bestowed victory in battle to vindicate the right of the victor. A king was the Lord’s anointed, hallowed at his coronation with holy oil. His chief functions were to protect his people by defending them against their enemies, to govern with justice and mercy, and to preserve and enforce the law of the land. ‘To fight and to judge are the office of a king,’ wrote Lord Chief Justice Sir John Fortescue in the 1460s. The qualities required were courage, wisdom and integrity, and the character of the sovereign was therefore all-important and on it depended the security and well-being of his subjects. Late mediaeval monarchy was a highly personal system of government: in this period kings ruled as well as reigned, and they wielded vast power.
Over the centuries, however, the administration of government had become increasingly cumbersome, and kings had delegated more and more of it to the growing number of departments of state within the royal household. These all carried out their particular functions in the king’s name while the monarch retained direct responsibility for foreign policy, the exercise of the royal prerogative and patronage, and control of the nobility. Kings were in theory at liberty to do as they pleased, but it was widely recognised that this ‘liberty’ was bound by the constraints of law and justice. The king’s ‘grace’ enabled him to adopt new ideas while preserving the ancient customs and traditions of the realm. The kingdom of England was regarded as the property of the monarch but, as Fortescue pointed out, although the royal power was supreme, kings could not make laws or impose taxes without the consent of Parliament.
A king was not only expected to protect and defend his realm but also had to be seen as a competent warrior. A king who inclined towards peace courted adverse public opinion, for most people placed great value on success in arms and the glorification of the nation’s reputation.
English kings of the fifteenth century did not maintain a standing army but relied on their nobility to provide them with troops when necessary. Hence it was important for a monarch to maintain good relations with the aristocracy and gentry, who might, if sufficiently provoked, use the armed strength at their disposal against him. It was also the duty of the sovereign to prevent power struggles between magnates, especially where these affected the stability of the realm. As we shall see, failure to do this could lead to dire consequences.
The people and ‘common weal’ of the realm were dependent on the monarchy producing heirs who were fit and able to rule and who could command the respect and loyalty of their subjects. Above all, a king’s title to the throne had to be beyond dispute, for this could and did lead to civil war, with all its attendant horrors. Thanks to the Wars of the Roses, by the end of the period covered by this book a king’s title to the throne had come not to matter as much as his ability to hold on to that throne and to govern effectively.
In the late mediaeval period the law of succession to the throne was ill-defined. Generally, primogeniture – the succession of the eldest son and his heirs – was the rule, but there were other important elements involved, such as recognition by the lords spiritual and temporal and, later, the ability to provide stable government.
Since the twelfth century, when Matilda, daughter of Henry I, had made a disastrous attempt to wrest the crown from her cousin, King Stephen, the English had been averse to the idea of a female ruler, believing that the concept was against nature and that women were incapable of good government. However, the law of the Salic Franks, which barred succession through a female, did not apply in England, where there was no statutory bar to a woman succeeding to the throne or transmitting a claim to her descendants. In fact, the issue had never been put to the test because, until the fifteenth century, the House of Plantagenet had produced a sufficiency of male heirs.
Apart from their distrust of female rulers, the English also feared the political instability of minorities, which occurred on the thankfully rare occasions when a child succeeded to the throne. Prior to the accession of Richard II in 1377 there had been only two minorities since the Norman Conquest of 1066; both had witnessed political turmoil.
From 1399 to 1499 the crown became the object of feuds, wars and conspiracies, not because of a dearth of heirs, but because there were too many powerful magnates with a claim to the throne. During this period a new and disturbing element became involved in determining the royal succession: the prevalence of might over right. This brought a new awareness of the lack of statute law governing the succession and a debate as to whether the rights of a senior heir general, with a claim transmitted through a female, could take precedence over the rights of a junior heir male. But in the final analysis strength and success were what counted: an effective ruler was more likely to remain on the throne, however dubious his title. Weak or tyrannical rulers met with disaster.
During the fifteenth century some attempts were made to regulate the laws of succession, but the highest legal authorities in the land, fearful of reprisals from interested magnates, repeatedly refused to pronounce conclusively on so weighty a matter, saying that the issue could not be determined by reference to common law.
The Wars of the Roses were primarily wars between the great magnates. The magnate class consisted of a small number of dukes – usually related to the royal house – marquesses and earls, and a great number of barons, knights and gentry. These were the men who owned most of the landed wealth of the kingdom and who exercised the greatest influence in their own territories, where they were respected and often feared.
John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln and Lord Chancellor in the 1480s, looked upon the English nobility as the rock and firm ground in a storm-tossed sea. Upon their shoulders lay the responsibility for the government of England. The nobility looked to the crown for promotion and rewards in return for services rendered in politics, in the field of battle, in the administrative departments of the royal household, in the diplomatic service, or in local government.
Rank was everything. During the Wars of the Roses, experienced commanders deferred to teenage boys simply because the latter were of the blood royal. The higher the rank, the richer the lord. A great magnate such as the Duke of York enjoyed an annual income of above £3000.*1 A baron could expect around £700 per annum, a knight anything between £40 and £200. The cost of building a defensive castle, such as Caister in Norfolk, was in the region of £6000.
From the fourteenth century onwards, the number of magnates had diminished. Wars, plagues, feuds and tournaments had led to many male lines dying out. Titles were frequently transferred via the marriages of heiresses, and inheritances grew consequently larger. By the fifteenth century the magnates, though fewer in number, had wider lands, greater wealth, and more power than ever before. Very few of the old Anglo-Norman families were left, but prominent families of the period – the Montacutes of Salisbury, the Courtenays of Devon, the Percies of Northumberland, the Nevilles, FitzAlans, Beauchamps, Staffords and Mortimers – were descendants of barons and knights, and were almost indistinguishable from this group, from which they frequently chose marriage partners. Many knightly families such as the Tiptofts and Bonvilles enjoyed substantial lands and influence, and would in the fifteenth century be elevated to the peerage. They would also look to increase their wealth by intermarrying with rich, mercantile families.
By the mid-century many of the great magnates were creating considerable wealth for themselves by investing in trade, while judicial marriage alliances were calculated to extend still further their lands and influence. Thus evolved what Lord Chief Justice Fortescue referred to as the ‘over-mighty subject’, who could command the loyalty and support of a huge army of tenants and retainers. Indeed, the prestige of a nobleman during the period came to be measured by the size of his private army and his ‘affinity’, those who were bound by contract to serve him.
By the reign of Henry VI (1422-61), feudalism had given way to what is often now described as ‘bastard feudalism’. Men of all classes had profited financially from the Hundred Years War with France, and when they returned home some used their profits to establish landed families. However, survival depended upon earning sufficient income to support such a lifestyle, and many men placed themselves under the protection of a powerful magnate, not as feudal vassals who swore allegiance to the lord and in return for his protection performed knight service when required, but as liveried retainers under contract. These contracts, or indentures, would bind both parties for a set period, often for life. The retainer became a member of the lord’s affinity, would wear his livery – a uniform and badge – and accompany him on military campaigns. In return, the magnate would assure the retainer of ‘good lordship’, which meant protection from his enemies and payment of an income known as a pension. The retainer could also expect rewards for services rendered, and these were often substantial, such as land or lucrative offices.
By means of this system, the wealthy magnates were able to gather around themselves affinities that could be used as formidable fighting forces. Without the existence of such private armies the Wars of the Roses could not have taken place.
Personal loyalty played little part in the new relationship between lord and retainer. A lord could only command a large following if he was rich, successful and influential. Self-interest, greed and the prospects of advancement were determining factors, ‘for the people’, wrote Fortescue, ‘will go with him that best may sustain and reward them’.
Bastard feudalism had its origins in the thirteenth century, but its growth had been facilitated by the decline of feudalism, the Hundred Years War, and the economic and social effects of the Black Death. By the end of the fourteenth century the government was already concerned about the effect this trend was having on the administration of justice at local level, and legislation was passed restricting the wearing of liveries. Up until the reign of Henry VI, however, the nobility were more preoccupied with the wars with France than with building up power bases at home. But by 1450 it was becoming alarmingly apparent that bastard feudalism was a threat, not only to local society, but also to the stability of central government itself. The private armies of noblemen were holding the countryside to ransom by bribery, extortion and violence, and subverting law and order by intimidation and threats, often with the backing of the great lords who employed them, whose duty it was to maintain the King’s peace. This led to a lessening of confidence in the judicial system. Justice, it seemed, was available only to those who could pay enough to secure a ‘right verdict’.
Fortescue warned of ‘the perils that may come to the King by over-mighty subjects. Certainly there may be no greater peril than to have a subject equivalent to himself.’ Some magnates were ‘of livelihood and power like a king’ already, and this did not augur well for the peace of the realm.
Some magnates were well-educated, cultivated men who carried out their duties conscientiously. Like all their caste, they were committed to the ideal of the triangular power structure presided over by the monarchy and to their time-honoured right to act as the king’s chief advisers. The fourteenth-century French chronicler Jean Froissart had praised the English nobility for being ‘extremely courteous, friendly and approachable’, but in the fifteenth century this was not always the case. Some were rough, violent men, whose brutish instincts were barely concealed by the trappings of chivalry. A few, like John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, were notorious sadists.
Many aristocrats lacked a sense of political responsibility. They were often at loggerheads with each other, or deeply divided by factional interests. Those in positions of the greatest power were frequently corrupt, avaricious and partisan, ruthlessly competing for royal patronage, jealously guarding their own interests and sparing little concern for those weaker than themselves. ‘The officers of the realm peeled the poor people and did many wrongs,’ wrote a chronicler in the 1450s.
The chief magnates rarely scrupled to exploit the generosity of a weak king, such as Henry VI, snatching as many Crown lands, honours and lucrative appointments as they could, and growing ever richer while the Crown sank into a morass of debt. Without a firm hand to curb their behaviour, these magnates were virtually out of control, and that posed another threat to the security of government.
The fifteenth century was an age of escalating change in society. The middle classes were growing more prosperous and influential, and some were even defying established custom by intermarrying with the gentry and knightly classes, while others were using the profits from mercantile enterprise to buy themselves a standard of living hitherto permitted only to those of noble birth. At the same time, the nobility were dabbling in trade – the dukes of Suffolk were actually descended from a Hull merchant. The lower classes, fuelled by the teachings of the Lollards, were increasingly questioning the established order. With these challenges came a degree of social anarchy and a lessening of respect for authority and the law.
From the beginning of Henry VI’s reign complaints about corruption, public disorder, riots and the maladministration of justice grew ever more vociferous. By the 1450s the situation had deteriorated so badly that there were urgent demands from all strata of society that something be done by the government to halt the decay. Law and order were in a state of collapse and crime was on the increase. Many soldiers returning from the wars in France found little to welcome them at home. Destitute, inured to violence and freed from military discipline, they frequently took to a life of brigandage and law-breaking. Some were employed by rich lords to intimidate, assault and even murder their enemies, who were often men of the gentry class and unable to defend themselves from armed thugs employed by their social superiors.
The blame for the endemic disorder may be laid squarely at the door of Henry VI, whose responsibility it was to control his magnates and enforce law and order. But the King, far from trying to right the wrongs suffered by his subjects, did nothing. The justices of the peace, who administered justice in his name, continued to be intimidated or bribed, and while the English were justly proud of their legal system and flourishing legal profession, they were by no means blind to its abuse by the great, recognising that the perversion of justice was the greatest evil of the age.
The chronicler John Hardyng wrote:
In every shire, with jacks and sallets clean,
Misrule doth rise and maketh neighbours war.
Most criminals appear to have got away with their crimes. They might be hauled before the justices, if they were caught at all, but many were acquitted, and even if they were not, the Lancastrian kings, especially Henry VI, issued thousands of pardons.
Capital punishment was the penalty for treason – reckoned by far the most heinous crime – murder and theft of items worth more than a shilling (5p). The prescribed punishment for traitors was hanging, drawing and quartering, a barbaric procedure in use since the thirteenth century. Traitors of noble birth usually escaped the full horrors of this method of execution and were dispatched by decapitation, but the lowlier-born were not so fortunate. Some traitors did not stand trial, but were condemned to forfeiture of life, titles and property by Acts of Attainder passed in Parliament. A large proportion of these attainders were later reversed, enabling the accused or his heirs to be restored ‘in blood’, or to their inheritance.
An Italian visitor observed, ‘It is the easiest thing to get a person thrown into prison in this country.’ Prisons were occupied mainly by debtors and common felons, while those who had committed crimes against the state were usually lodged in the Tower of London or other fortresses. There was no police force. The maintenance of law and order was the responsibility of the sheriffs and their local constables, who were often either corrupt or ineffectual.
The prevailing disorder of the period did not stem the creation of wealth by the merchant class. After 1450 the wool trade slowly declined in importance, but at the same time there was increasing demand abroad for other English products, such as woollen cloth, tin, lead, leather and alabaster carvings from Nottinghamshire.
The English-owned port of Calais in north-west France was the chief market-place for England’s wool. A monopoly was enforced by the Merchants of the Staple, who sold the wool exported there to merchants from all over Europe. The stability of Calais was all-important to the merchant classes, but it was undermined during the Wars of the Roses when feuding magnates regarded it as a refuge in exile or, more alarmingly, as a springboard for invasion of England.
Many merchants, especially those in London, grew rich by importing luxury goods from the Mediterranean, which was a centre for commodities from even further afield – spices, medicines, paper, oriental silks, manuscripts, armour, wines, cotton, sugar, velvets and precious stones. For centuries the English had imported wine from Bordeaux and Gascony, and mercifully, with the cessation of the Hundred Years War and the victory of the French, the trade did not cease or suffer unduly.
Fortescue was of the opinion that ‘the common people of this land are the best fed and the best clad of any nation’. Serfdom had declined after the Black Death, and a shortage of labour had resulted in magnates and other landowners being willing to pay men to work on their land. Government efforts to impose wage controls had not succeeded, and hired labour was much in demand. Many lords had vacant tenancies for lease, since leaseholds were rapidly replacing feudal service, and rents were attractively low.
With the disappearance of serfdom the peasants enjoyed greater freedom and mobility, but their lot was often a gruelling one, especially in winter when food was scarce and there was little protection from the cold. Many peasants lived in tiny cottages with one or two rooms, earthen floors, a small window and basic items of furniture. Their livestock lived with them. Many existed in grinding poverty and relied on the charity dispensed by the Church or rich lay persons.
Few peasants suffered hardship, however, as a result of the agricultural depression that lasted from the late fourteenth century to around 1460, during which much land was converted into pasture for sheep. The depression led to falls in rents and prices, which meant that the peasant class, whose labour was so much in demand, had never before been so prosperous. Many farms fell into ruin, especially in the north, and land could be had cheaply. A phenomenon of the age was the self-made peasant who had managed to buy his own land and become prosperous. One such man from Wiltshire gained rich profits from making woollen cloth and left £2000 in his will, an enormous sum for the time.
The average peasant earned between £5 and £10 a year; in 1450 labourers were paid 4d a day, while skilled craftsmen earned between 5d and 8d. It cost around £3.4s.od. (£3.20) to build a cottage. Food, however, was half the price it had been in the fourteenth century, with eggs at 5d for a hundred, milk or beer 1d a gallon, and luxuries such as red wine 10d a gallon, sugar 1s.6d. (7½p) per pound, and pepper 2s (10p) per pound.
The government of the country was carried out by the king’s Council, which sat almost continuously and was made up of lords both temporal and spiritual as well as able men of lesser rank. The king sometimes presided over the Council but his presence was not always necessary to its smooth functioning; however, all its business was carried out in his name.
The Council’s chief functions were to assist the king in the formulation of policy and to carry out the day-to-day business of government. The long minority of Henry VI strengthened the prestige and authority of the Council as well as that of the magnates, giving both a prolonged taste of sovereign power that would not easily be relinquished.
It was the Council that governed the realm, not Parliament. Parliament was not as important, although its power was increasing throughout the fifteenth century. It comprised the three estates of the realm: the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons, who were represented by knights from the shires and burgesses from the boroughs. Parliament’s chief functions were the granting of taxation and the consideration of petitions. It was also the supreme court of justice.
The king could summon and dismiss Parliament at will, but there were occasions when he could not function without it. Making war was something ‘the King cannot undertake without assembling his Parliament’, wrote Commines. ‘It is a very just and laudable institution and therefore the kings are stronger and better served. The King declares his intentions and asks for aid from his subjects; he cannot raise any tax in England except for an expedition to France or Scotland or some other comparable cause. They will grant them very willingly, especially for going to France!’ Nor could new laws be passed without the consent of Parliament. Elections, however, were frequently rigged, and the magnates did not shrink from packing Parliament with men of their affinity when their own interests might be at stake.
Parliament could be summoned to meet anywhere in the kingdom, but it usually assembled in Henry III’s wonderful Painted Chamber in the Palace of Westminster. Sometimes the Lords would gather in the White Chamber or the Marculf Room in the palace, while the Commons would meet in the refectory of Westminster Abbey.
The administration of government was centred on the enormously influential royal household, which consisted of the court and various departments of state, chiefly the Chancery, the Exchequer, the Chamber and the Wardrobe. These were responsible for the legal, financial and administrative aspects of government, as well as providing for the court and the ceremonial and personal requirements of the king and his family, even to the provision of horses, clothing and food. The royal household was therefore the political nerve-centre of the kingdom and its officers enjoyed a tremendous degree of influence simply by being in close proximity to the monarch.
The capital city and chief seat of government was, of course, London, which then extended to approximately one square mile to the north of the River Thames, and was bounded by a wall with seven gates, all of which were locked at night. The city’s main defences were centred on the Tower of London – fortress, palace and state prison – which had not yet acquired its later sinister reputation.
London had a single bridge, built of white stone across nineteen arches and lined with houses, shops and a chapel. The Thames was London’s main thoroughfare, and travel through the city was quickest by barge or wherry, since the narrow, malodorous streets were frequently congested by carts, crowds and livestock. There were therefore many landing stages along the banks of the river, and hundreds of boatmen plied their trade in waters already crowded with merchant ships and private barges. The average fare paid by travellers was 1d. Along the river were quays, docks, warehouses, wharfs and cranes, and further along, by the Strand, gardens swept down from the mansions of the nobility to the river, each with its own private jetty.
Visitors were struck by the noble buildings – the perpendicular splendour of old St Paul’s Cathedral, the Guildhall, the fine houses of the great, the Palace of Westminster, the nearby abbey, and no less than eighty city churches. Suburbs were already growing outside the walls, but they were small developments, and in 1483 the Italian observer Dominic Mancini was struck by the pastoral peace and fertile green fields that surrounded the capital.
London was governed by its elected Lord Mayor, aldermen and Court of Common Council, all drawn from the ranks of wealthy merchants, men who were jealous of the city’s privileges and exerted considerable political influence. ‘It all belongs to craftsmen and merchants,’ observed Mancini. The city of London was to play a decisive part in the Wars of the Roses, and its support – or the lack of it – for the various contenders for the throne would be crucial.
London was described by one foreign visitor as the busiest of cities, while a Milanese envoy believed it was ‘the wealthiest city in Christendom’. However, it was a Scotsman, William Dunbar, who most aptly summed up the spirit of London, in a poem written in the 1490s:
Strong be thy walls that about thee stand,
Wise be the people that within thee dwell,
Fresh be thy river with his lusty strands,
Blithe be thy churches, well-sounding be thy bells;
Rich be thy merchants, in substance that excels,
Fair be their wives, right lovesome, white and small,
Clear be thy virgins, lusty under kirtles:
London, thou art the flower of cities all!
The fifteenth century was a period in which people’s standards of living rose considerably. Surviving churches, castles and manor houses, as well as inventories of furnishings and property, bear witness to this.
In spite of the unsettled times few heavily fortified castles were built, and existing castles were modernised by the addition of great halls, large windows and luxurious domestic accommodation. The rich built themselves country mansions and manor houses that satisfied their need for comfort and aesthetic pleasure. These houses were not built with defence in mind, although many sported defensive features such as moats, crenellations and gatehouses as features of decoration. This trend in building shows a certain confidence in the long-term stability of the country, and it continued even throughout the Wars of the Roses, serving as proof that those wars had less effect on the social and cultural life of the nation at large than might have been imagined from a reading of the works of contemporary chroniclers.
In addition to a great hall, most houses were now built with a number of smaller chambers for family use, reflecting a new taste for privacy. The fireplace replaced the open hearth in the centre of a room, windows became larger, letting in more light, and often had carved frames of wood or stone; glass was less of a luxury than it had been, and wealthy families would commission stained-glass windows, often depicting coats of arms, for their new homes. Furnishings, such as tester beds, settles, tables, stools, chests and cupboards, were few but of good quality and fashioned from solid wood. Elaborately carved beds with rich hangings, woven tapestries or painted hangings, and utensils of gold and silver plate were often bequeathed in wills.
This was the great age of church building and adornment. English craftsmen were particularly skilled in carving wood and alabaster, making decorative grilles and producing jewel-coloured glass. It was also a growth period for English music. The Yorkist court was famed for its musicians and for its patronage of composers. The carol, originally a piece of music composed in honour of any great occasion in the calendar, which could be sung and danced to, was particularly fashionable. Many of today’s most popular Christmas carols date from this period.
English was by this time the language of all classes, and many books were written in the vernacular. The nobility were mostly able to speak French, which had been the language of the court and the legal profession until the late fourteenth century, and most educated people were taught Latin, which was still the international language of the Church and of Christendom. There was a steady growth in public literacy throughout the period. Books, although luxury items because they were hand-produced, were more readily available and no longer confined to the libraries of the Church or the universities. Many nobles, knights and merchants now collected books, and some amassed quite large libraries. The fifteenth century produced no great literary figures of the stature of Chaucer, whose works were still widely read. The foremost writers of the period were John Gower, Thomas Hoccleve and John Lydgate.
Many schools were founded, most administered by the Church, although some lay persons were founding secular grammar schools in towns and cities. The régime in all schools was strict and followed the precept ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’. Whereas the sons of the nobility had long received an education in both military and academic skills, the rising middle classes now also wanted their sons reared ‘to cunning learning and erudition’, because they knew it was possible to secure worldly advancement with a sound education. Many went on to university and thence into the Church. There was a planned expansion in the universities, mainly to provide sufficient academics to meet the needs of the Church, but also to provide more secular opportunities for ambitious young men.
Formal education was provided for boys only. Women were seen as the inferior sex and regarded as the chattels of men. The author of The Goodman of Paris (c. 1393) advised wives to behave like faithful dogs in order to please their husbands, and Margaret Paston of Norfolk referred to John Paston as ‘right worshipful husband’ in her letters. The husband was lord of his family as God reigned supreme over the universe. The chief duty of a wife, therefore, was to be submissive. If there was discord in a marriage, or infertility, people automatically assumed it was the wife’s fault. Women had virtually no freedom beyond that which their fathers or husbands allowed them. Within these confines, however, many managed businesses, shops, farms or noble estates, and proved themselves the equal to men.
Marriages were arranged for social, financial or territorial advantage. The concept of marrying for love was an alien one, hence the outrage in 1464 when King Edward IV impulsively married a commoner who refused to be his mistress.
A wife was expected to manage her husband’s household, and his estates in his absence, set a good example to her children and servants, and – above all – bear sons to ensure that her lord’s estates remained within the family. Daughters were useful for securing marriage alliances, but every man of property wanted a son to inherit it. The price women paid for this was high. Many died in childbirth or worn out by repeated pregnancies by the time they were thirty, the average life expectancy of women at this time.
Marriage was regarded by the Church as a necessary evil, following the dictum of St Paul, who said it was better to marry than to burn. Most people married, unless they were apprentices or in holy orders, and child marriages were not uncommon. One heiress, Grace de Saleby, had been thrice married by the age of eleven; John Rigmardin was a bridegroom at three years old, and thirteen-year-old John Bridge, after being put to bed with his bride on their wedding night, bawled to go home to his father.
Fifteenth-century children were by no means spoiled. Their elders enforced strict codes of behaviour and manners, and demonstrations of affection were rare. Parental love expressed itself in worldly expectations. Children were expected to be wholly obedient to their parents, and the slightest fault was punished by a beating, in the child’s own interests. One Venetian ambassador commented, ‘The want of affection in the English is strongly manifested toward their children.’ When he asked some parents why they were so harsh, ‘they answered that they did it in order that their children might learn better manners’.
Upper-class children, even the heirs to estates, were rarely brought up at home but were sent at an early age to be educated and reared in the household of some noble and influential lord, who would hopefully secure future preferment for them. Few of these children then returned home. ‘The girls are settled in marriage by their patrons and the boys make the best marriages they can.’ Childhood ended early. Most children were married, apprenticed or in the cloister or university by their early teens.
The fifteenth century was a turbulent age, and that turbulence manifested itself in England in the civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses, a conflict that was by no means continuous but which dragged on intermittently for a period of thirty years and more. This book tells the story of the struggle between Lancaster and York.